The Game
by letsbehappy
Summary: Taylor, being the smart young woman that she is, succeeds in harnessing Chad's uncanny timing skills and uses it to benefit the two most stubborn people to ever enter East High. Short Troy/Gabriella Oneshot.


_AN: I didn't write this. My friend did but asked me to upload it for her._

-

Taylor, being the smart young woman that she is, succeeds in harnessing Chad's uncanny timing skills and uses it to benefit the two most stubborn people to ever enter East High. Short Troy/Gabriella Oneshot.

-

Four studious girls were gathered at a wooden library table, intently reading over their notes for tomorrow's Biology test. They had each woken up early in the morning to have a study session before classes started. But at the moment, they were feeling a bit too studious. The library was practically deserted. They had sat in silence for the majority of the time, the quiet only breaking if one girl was to quiz another.

Kelsi could feel information escaping her brain, sentence by sentence, as she reread her notes for the umpteenth time. Martha had started doodling in the margins and filling in her drawings with her highlighters in assorted colours. Gabriella's eyes wandered, reading the titles on every book spine she could see. They simultaneously glanced at Taylor, but were unable to see her due to the massive textbook she had blocking her face.

Finally, Taylor laid the chunky book down with an echoing thump. She sighed, "Okay, who else is sick of this."

Gabriella giggled, "Oh, I'm sure we all are. Maybe we've been working to hard. We've all been studying for the past couple of days, and we still have tonight, too, so it's not like we'll walk into tomorrow's test unprepared."

The other two girls agreed immediately.

Martha slid her binder out of her way. "So what are we going to do now?" she asked. "Classes don't start for another twenty minutes. There's nothing to occupy out time, and I really don't want to read anymore."

"Too bad the boys don't have basketball practice today, or else Gabriella would be zooming down there right now to check out and drool over Troy," commented Taylor.

"Hey!" Gabriella blushed. "Don't deny that you'd be there as well, following Chad's every move."

"Has Troy asked you out yet?" inquired Martha.

"No, not yet." Shrugging, Gabriella fiddled with the closest pen she could find.

"Really? I'm surprised!"

"Why?" Taylor pipped up, "That boy's slower than a tortoise when it comes to Gabriella."

"Can we not talk about guys?" pleaded the brunette, who was currently rolling her eyes.

Martha asked, "Then what to you suggest we do?" She looked around the rectangular table at each of her friends before noticing that Kelsi was scribbling something on the back of her hand. "What are you doing, Kels?"

"Oh, I just wrote a reminder to myself, because I lost my agenda a few days ago," replied Kelsi, capping her pen.

Taylor reached out for it, and Kelsi handed it to her. "Hey, remember that game where someone writes the name of someone on your palm, and you have to resist not looking at it for the rest of the day? Oh, and if you're tempted and you do, you have to give the person a hug before the end of the day, without telling them it's part of a game, no matter how awkward it is or how much you dislike the person."

Martha gave a bubbly laugh. "God, I haven't played that since middle school. It was funny though, when my friend had to give the nerdiest kid in school, who openly picked his nose, a genuine hug."

Taylor asked, "Do you want to play it today? Just for fun, you know. And we have nothing better to do right now, anyway."

Kelsi smiled mischievously. "All right. Let's do it. I already have someone for Taylor."

"Okay, I'm in," said Gabriella. "Who's going first?"

"Give me your hand, Martha," Taylor spoke. The hip-hop dancer obliged, and Taylor quickly wrote a name. Both Gabriella and Kelsi craned their necks to see who Martha might potentially be hugging. Alan Whitaker. Gabriella remember him as the brave person who auditioned for Twinkle Town even without knowing the correct lyrics.

"I feel so childish," giggled Martha. "Is it someone nice?" she asked the girls.

Kelsi shook her head. "Sorry, no telling." Then she wrote something on Taylor's hand, grinning and hoping Taylor wouldn't be able to withstand the temptation of not knowing.

After Kelsi had her turn, Taylor nonchalantly penned the name of the person Gabriella might have to hug.

**-**

Martha caved after first period. The girls watched in amusement as she and Alan shared a bear hug that left him stammering and awkwardly waddling away.

**-**

Kelsi couldn't help but look right before lunch. She timidly wrapped her arms around East High's head cheerleader, knowing she'd be labelled as a freak, but smiled again when she say her friends' hysterical faces.

**-**

Gabriella, Kelsi and Martha all tried to get Taylor to crack, but were unsuccessful. The brainiac simply had too much will-power and they watched as she walked off to converse with Chad in a secret meeting.

"What do you think they'd have to say?" wondered Kelsi aloud, desperate for Taylor to give in to the pressure.

"I don't know," was Gabriella's reply.

**-**

It was a mistake, really. Gabriella had only wanted to relieve herself and scratch an itch on her nose. At the time, it hadn't occurred to her that her palm would be in her line of vision. And she didn't think to use the hand that was bare.

She gulped. _Troy Bolton_ had been written in Taylor's elegant script.

It was easy, if you thought about it. She'd hugged the basketball captain before--after the championship game to name one occasion. But the almost-kiss afterwards had left them both awkward and stammering around each other. Now without play rehearsal as an excuse to regularly see each other, they were left needing another topic for their conversations to center around. The two found their friendship suddenly drifting away; a space between them wedging them apart when neither was looking.

**-**

"Hey, Troy," Gabriella greeted him, "long time no talk."

"Oh, hi, Gabriella," he replied, "yeah, I know, right? So, um, how are you?"

"I'm great. How was basketball practice?"

"Basketball season's over; we won the championship, but the game I had with Chad and the other guys last Sunday was good if you were wondering."

"Of course it is." Her cheeks flushed bright pink. "I'm sorry. I knew that because, well, I was there to see you guys win."

Troy reassured her, "It's okay. The school year's passing by so quickly that sometimes you can forget--"

The blue-eyed junior never had a chance to finish his sentence, as Gabriella spontaneously wrapped her thin arms around his waist. It was nice, he thought, and he definitely missed this. Missed her. And he was able to get a whiff of the fragrance she always wore that had been lingering in his mind ever since the Triple Win. There was no space between them anymore.

Troy panicked slightly when he felt her shifting to move away from him, but before he could hug her back, a body had barreled through the hallway and nudged him closer.

So they kissed.

Their lips touched briefly, anyway. His face had been bent downwards, and her head had been tilted up, ready to apologise before something had knocked into him.

When they both turned around to see Chad standing inches from Troy, neither needed much more evidence to conclude it was all his doing. Until they saw a smiling Taylor McKessie standing off to the side, that was.

Gabriella started to ramble, "Troy, I didn't mean to. You see, we'd been playing a game and--"

Troy raised his left hand to silence her. And written across his palm was Gabriella Montez in dark blue ink. "I think I know what game you were playing," he chuckled, "Chad practically forced me to play it, too, despite me calling him an elementary school girl."

"Oh, well I guess we've both hugged our respective people then."

"You guys played with hugging? Because the rules for my game was that if you looked, you'd have to ask that person out. So, Gabriella, would you..."

"Oh, sure. Yes. I would." She beamed brightly at him. "I'd love to go out with you."

He was about to lean down again before they were interrupted by a loud gasp. Taylor had read her hand; Kelsi had so kindly written Sharpay Evans.


End file.
